Cross-border E-commerce Platform Overseas Case

A well-known brand is a Chinese cross-border fast fashion independent e-commerce site established in 2023, specializing in women's clothing and accessories. Its core markets cover Europe and America (USA, Germany, UK) and Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia), with approximately 8,000 daily visitors and an average order value of $80-150. As an emerging brand, it faced three core operational challenges in Q2 2024:

• High Order Abandonment Rate: Payment page abandonment rate reached 38%. Most users cancelled orders after payment due to not receiving immediate confirmation, with email notification open rates at only 18%, failing to timely reassure users.
• Frequent Logistics Complaints: Cross-border logistics cycles are long (7-15 days for Europe/America, 5-10 days for Southeast Asia). Users couldn't track logistics status in real-time, resulting in customer service inquiries accounting for 45% of total inquiries, with logistics-related complaints exceeding 60% and negative review rates climbing annually to 8%.
• Difficult Repurchase Activation: Reliance on Facebook and Instagram advertising for traffic resulted in a high customer acquisition cost (CAC) of $22 per user, while returning customer repurchase rate was only 12%, lacking low-cost, high-reach repurchase activation channels.

To solve these issues, the well-known independent e-commerce site partnered with global cloud communication service provider Yaning AI in July 2024 to build an international SMS operation system covering pre-sale, mid-sale, and post-sale stages. The core objectives were to reduce complaint rates, improve order conversion rates and returning customer repurchase rates while controlling communication costs.

1. Pre-sale: Instant Confirmation + Precise Payment Reminders, Reducing Abandonment Rate

Addressing post-payment user uncertainty by establishing dual-node SMS reach:

• Order Confirmation SMS: Triggered within 3 seconds of successful user payment, automatically matching target market languages (English, German, Indonesian, etc.), containing order numbers, product details, estimated shipping times, and customer service reply channels ("INFO" to consult). For example, the German template for German users: "Hallo [Name], Ihre Bestellung #FE20240715008 wurde erfolgreich bezahlt. Lieferung erwartet zwischen 20.-22.07.2024. Für Fragen antworten Sie mit "INFO". - xxx Independent Site".
• Abandoned Cart Recovery SMS: For uncompleted payments, sent 2 hours after users leave the payment page with exclusive 5% discount codes (valid for 24 hours) and clear instructions. US market template: "Hi [Name], your order #FE20240715009 is waiting! Use code ABANDON5 for 5% off, valid for 24hrs. Complete payment now: [Link]. Reply STOP to unsubscribe. - xxx Independent Site", strictly following TCPA requirements with opt-out options.

2. Mid-Sale: Logistics Node Synchronization + Two-Way Interaction, Reducing Complaints

Integrating the independent site with logistics system APIs to enable logistics status-triggered SMS notifications covering three key nodes while opening two-way communication channels:

• Shipping notification: Sent immediately after packages leave inventory, containing tracking numbers, query links, and clear estimated delivery times.
• Customs/transit notification: Sent when cross-border packages enter destination country customs or transit, alleviating user anxiety. For example, Southeast Asian market template: "Hai [Name], paket Anda #FE20240716012 sedang dalam proses bea cukai di Indonesia. Perkiraan tiba: 18 Juli. Cek status: [Link]. - xxx Independent Site".
• Delivery reminder: Sent 2 hours before delivery personnel departure, informing approximate delivery time windows, supporting user replies "RESCHEDULE" for rescheduling, with customer service teams responding 24/7.

3. Post-Sale: Satisfaction Survey + Repurchase Activation, Enhancing Lifecycle Value

Within 48 hours of package receipt, reaching users in two steps balancing service optimization and repurchase conversion:

• Satisfaction Survey: Sending brief interactive SMS where users reply with numbers to provide feedback (1 worst, 5 best), automatically pushing thank-you messages after replies, and having customer service immediately follow up on 1-2 ratings. Template: "Dear [Name], we hope you love your xxx independent site order! Rate your experience (1-5). Reply with your score, we value your feedback. - xxx Independent Site".
• Repurchase Activation: For 3-5 rating users, sending personalized repurchase SMS 7 days later combining historical purchase categories to recommend new products with $20 off $100+ discount codes. For example, UK user template: "Hi [Name], thanks for loving our dress! Check our new autumn collection and get £20 off over £80 with code REPEAT20. Valid till [Date]. - xxx Independent Site", following EU GDPR requirements by only pushing to users who have consented to marketing communications.

4. Technical and Compliance Support: Adapting to Multi-Market Needs

Core support provided by the service provider includes: global node deployment ensuring SMS average delivery time ≤1.2 seconds with delivery rates above 98%; built-in multilingual template library supporting dynamic insertion of user names, order numbers and other variables; dashboard monitoring delivery rates, reply rates, conversion rates and other metrics in real-time for strategy optimization; simultaneously assisting completion of EU GDPR, Indonesian PSE certification and other regional compliance filings to mitigate violation risks.

• ✓ Order Conversion: Payment page abandonment rate decreased from 38% to 22%, abandoned cart recovery SMS average response rate 15.6%, monthly order recovery through payment reminders exceeded $23,000.
• ✓ Customer Service: Logistics-related inquiries decreased by 68%, complaint rate dropped from 8% to 2.1%, user satisfaction scores improved to 4.6 (out of 5).
• ✓ Repurchase and Costs: Returning customer repurchase rate increased from 12% to 22%, international SMS per-message reach costs reduced to $0.18-0.32 (by market), single customer repurchase activation costs reduced by 65% compared to social media advertising.
• ✓ Brand Trust: Sending SMS through exclusive Sender-ID enhanced user brand recognition and trust, new user retention rate (30 days) increased by 30%.

Ms. Li, Operations Director of the well-known independent e-commerce site stated: "Previously we overly relied on advertising traffic while neglecting full-chain order user communication. International SMS achieved high reach and interactivity at extremely low costs, not only solving core logistics complaint pain points but also making returning customer activation efficient and controllable. Especially the multilingual and compliance adaptation capabilities have made our operations in European, American, and Southeast Asian markets more reassuring, becoming core infrastructure for brand cross-border growth."